We should write the United States off, abandon the US-centric thinking whose Left version is "the US is singularly and exceptionally bad") and take a truly global perspective.
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Of course, there's the temptation, at the most frustrating moments, to "write the United States off". But there are problems with this.
I won't dwell on the obvious -- i.e. how the suggestion to "write off" the place where you live is nothing more than a call for despair, bitterly coated with an Olympian sense of superiority (an aggressive sort of depression really) -- and I won't mention, for too long anyway, how this "write off the US" admonition is a form of abandonment of both ourselves and those we care about.
Those are emotional appeals, not likely to catch your ear as they lack the metallic clang of that peculiar brand of rational discourse (logically structured, but filled with blanket, superheated condemnations of various groups...for ex. SUV drivers) you're so fond of.
So let's try another approach.
It would be unwise to "write off" the US because, to state it clearly, the US has the ability to destroy civilization. All those nuclear warheads, all that materiel, all those angry people...this is not the sort of pot you allow to boil without very careful monitoring.
The world cannot happily, and in peace, pursue whatever more-just order might evolve without the participation of the US because the US retains the ability to wreck it. So she's either in with the rest or the global project will fail. This isn't "US-centric thinking", any more than paying special attention to the bastard pointing a gun at your head is bastard-centric thinking.
.d.